DOCTOR MIDNIGHT & THE MERCY CULT I Declare : Treason (2011) Digipak CD

Formed from the wreckage of Turbonegro, which is about as good a starting point as you can ask for, Doctor Midnight & the Mercy Cult landed I Declare: Treason in 2011 and proceeded to confuse everyone who wanted them to just be a straightforward rock band. Good.

This is heavy, grimy, industrial-tinged metal with the kind of personality that a lot of the genre conspicuously lacks. Czral, the man behind the project, brings a sleaze and a swagger to the dark aesthetic that sits somewhere between Marilyn Manson at his most confrontational and the mechanical grind of KMFDM, filtered through a Scandinavian sensibility that keeps it from ever getting too comfortable. The digipak presentation is the right format for this one, it feels like something that should have liner notes you actually read. If your taste runs toward punk energy meeting industrial metal structure with a horror edge, this is exactly the kind of record ALT CVLT exists to stock.

2011 digipak CD, full-length album. Origin: Finland. Fans of: Turbonegro, Marilyn Manson, KMFDM, Satyricon, Danzig.